Drunk Again
by Bluemoon375
Summary: Having relocated to Forget-Me-Not Valley after one two many mistakes back on Sunny Island, Lanna hits the Blue Bar hoping to drink her memories away, finding she can only in fact remember them. Songficish one-shot.


The audience erupted with applause as Lanna emerged from curtains and headed towards the center of the stage before them.

"Hey! Are you all ready?" She shouted to the anxious crowd.

Once again the stadium filled with cheers, answering the bubbly pop star's rhetorical question.

"Okay!" She replied with a smile. "One tw-"

Suddenly without warning Lanna's expression changed from a cheerful to one of incredible pain. She fell to her knees and immediately gripped her chest with her hand, her heart feeling as if it was about to explode. As she knelt there in pain the whole world around her began to fade away until all that remained were her and the spotlight that shined above her.

"S-S-Someone… help…" She begged between short breaths, unaware of the vanishing world before her. "My… heart…"

The pain coming from her heart spiked as she began to sweat. The amount of time between each of her breaths decreased with each one.

"Somebody!" She screamed. "Help!"

Off in the distance she began to hear a loud banging sound that seemed to grow louder and louder each second. She attempted to cover her ears to block out the noise but the pain in her chest intensified once more brining her hands back down. She shut her eyes.

"Lanna!" A voice called out in between the pounding sounds. "Lanna!"

She curled up into a ball and clutched her chest, refusing to open her eyes.

"Lanna!"

…

"Lanna!"

As Lanna opened her eyes she quickly sat up in bed, her breaths still shallow and rapid. She immediately surveyed the area to find that she was still in her room at the Inner Inn, the amount of light coming in the room through the window indicating it was late in the day. As she began to try and slow her breathing down she placed her hand over her heart and felt that it was racing even in reality. If her condition had been any less severe she might have taken a moment to question the events of the previous night and how she got back in her room but relaxation was her top priority.

"Whew… It was just… a nightmare…" She whispered between her breaths. "Just another nightmare…"

Taking a deep breath, she fell back onto her pillow and closed her eyes to relax only to hear the pounding sound from her dream fill the room.

"Miss Lanna?" A voice called out from the door.

Taking a deep breath she reopened her eyes as she got out of bed and scurried over to the door.

"Yes?" She asked as she opened it and met eyes with the concerned eyes of the innkeeper Ruby.

"Sorry for bothering you miss." She apologized with a slight bow. "It's just that it's getting pretty late in the day and it hadn't seemed like you gotten up yet so I wanted to see if you're alright."

Lanna flashed a smile as she continued to poke her head through the doorway. She was still in her light green nightgown and didn't feel like fully exposing herself to someone she didn't know very well.

"Oh I'm fine." She answered. "Just… catching up on some sleep, that's all."

"Oh, I see." Ruby replied with a nod. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay."

Lanna simply continued to smile and watched as Ruby then turned around and headed back downstairs. Once she was out of view she shut the door and leaned back against it, taking a deep breath as she did so. Placing her hand back over her chest she slid down the door as she felt her heart rate continue to slow down. She raised her head and glanced over at the clock sitting on the nightstand by her bed.

_4:47p.m._

Sighing, she rose to her feet and walked over to the nightstand and picked up her phone.

"No new calls or messages…" She muttered before tossing it back onto the stand.

She took a seat on the edge of the bed and rested her head in her hands before blowing the strands of hair hanging in front of her eyes, ignoring how the gently fell back into place. After a few seconds eh sighed and placed her hand back over her heart again. It was finally starting to beat at a normal pace again. With another deep breath she fell back onto the bed and began to rub her now aching head.

"_Why me?" _She thought to herself even though it only made her headache worse. _"Why now?"_

She glanced back over at the nightstand before sitting up and checking her phone again.

"Nothing…" She mumbled with a sigh.

As she glanced back up her eyes became fixated on the door across from her as she started to zone out. She refused to let her mind wander for long though, quickly shaking her head before turning towards the window. Outside she could see that the sky had become that prefect mix of orange and purple indicating that it was already what was referred to as twilight time, the clouds along the visible horizon as dark as an abyss.

"_Another day spent in bed…" _She thought to herself before looking down at the very bed she thought of. She rubbed her hand over the smooth fabric of the sheets. _"At least I can get a pleasant dream from you every now and then."_

Getting up she nonchalantly walked over to the small wooden desk sitting across from the foot of the bed. The desk was covered with a mess of papers that ranged from blank pieces of sheet music to crumpled up notes she had been too lazy to simply toss in the trash bin beside it. She picked up one of pages of sheet music that was only half scribbled out and stared at it, the look in her eyes becoming disheartened at what was written. It was only one more season until she was scheduled to return to the city so she could begin preparing for her triumphant return to the stage so far it was shaping up to be anything but. Her manager had asked her to have at least six songs ready for recording upon her arrival yet the very paper in her hands was the only thing she had been able to come up with so far.

She sighed. "Come on, you can do this."

She forcibly backed the desk's accompanying chair away before sitting down it. Placing the page down in the center of the mess she reached into the pile of pages nearby and retrieved one of the pencils buried underneath it. So far what she had managed to come up with was slowly shaping up to be a typical love song, much like her old songs that had made her famous just a few years prior. She wanted to recapture that feeling in from her previous work that she felt was the key to her success yet she just couldn't find it in her to write songs like that anymore.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she began to tap the tip of the pencil against the page. _"Come on… think…" _Her eyelids clenched together. _"Come on…"_

As she began to try and focus her thoughts she started to apply more force to the pencil, the eventual breaking of it snapping her out of her trance.

"Damn it!" She shouted.

Angrily, she knocked all the papers on the desk off onto the floor before staring down at them, each one representing another one of her recent failures.

After a moment she turned back towards the desk and rested her elbows on it as she started to rub her head. "Ugh… I need a drink."

She turned back to face the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was past five now, meaning the Blue Bar was now open. Getting up from the desk, she walked over to her dresser and began to look for something to wear. While she knew that the bar here wasn't a formal place she eventually decided to wear her green and white dress that she usually saved for her concerts and other special occasions. If she failed to make any progress with her work later she'd at least be able take pride in her appearance. She pulled it and a matching headband out of the drawer before walking over to the window and shutting the blinds.

"_It's okay." _She thought to herself as she began to change. _"I'll just stop in for a quick drink to calm down and then I'll get right back to work."_

Once dressed, she stepped over to the nightstand and grabbed her coin purse before heading out the door. Making her way down the stairs she flashed a smile at Ruby behind the desk in the lobby and headed out the door. Once outside the cold wind of fall greeted her by brushing up against her. She crossed her arms and quickly scurried over to the bar next door. As she stepped inside the barkeeper, Griffin looked up from the glass he was cleaning as Muffy continued to organize drinks on the shelves near the back of the room.

"Evening there Lanna." He greeted.

"Hello Griffin." She greeted back as she carefully shut the door and headed to the empty chair near the edge of the counter. She found it funny how she had only been to the bar about four times since she moved to the valley yet she felt more comfortable with Griffin than she did with Ruby who she rented a room from.

"I trust you're feeling better tonight?" He asked as she seated herself.

"Better?" She asked back.

He nodded his head before setting the glass in his hand aside. "You stopped in last night. Long story short I had to have Muffy here help you back to your room."

Lanna formed a nervous smile as she laughed, sounding just as uneasy as she looked. "Oh, yeah. Heh, y-yeah, I'm feeling much better." She looked over at Muffy who had turned around at the mention of her name. "Sorry about that."

She simply smiled. "Oh no worries, it was nice to have to escort someone who isn't Rock home for once." She laughed before returning to her work. "He can be so grabby sometimes…" She muttered under her breath.

"So if you're feeling better I take it you want a drink." Griffin assumed as he leaned against the counter. "What'll it be?"

Lanna's eyes snapped back towards him. "Oh, um…" She trailed off as she shuffled the purse in her hands as she thought. "Just give me a fall colors."

He nodded before rummaging around underneath the bar for her requested. Once found, he began to pour it into the glass he had set aside earlier.

"Here you are." He said as he slid it over to her. "Try not to overdo it this time." He quietly advised.

Lanna simply nodded.

She took her first sip of her drink as Griffin walked away to give Muffy a hand. As she set her glass back down she placed her hand on her forehead as she began to think.

"_Is my drinking really getting that bad already?" _She thought to herself. _"I haven't even been drinking that long…"_ She shook her head. _"Like that actually matters."_ She was right. It was the first night in fact that she had decided to take on the "hobby" that she discovered how harsh the side effects of it could be. Shuddering at the memory of that night she decided to take another drink. She had always heard that drinking helps you forget yet it seemed that all it could do was help her remember.

About two years ago she felt like she was on top of the world. With her latest record topping the charts combined with her incredibly large fan base and equally large amount of money she truly felt like she was a superstar. Yet, after two solid seasons of touring she couldn't help but feel the need to break away from it for a while. It was then that she announced that she would be taking a temporary break from the stage in order to relax before her next album. Even though she made sure to not tell anyone where she would be going she was still surprised to find that she was able to successfully relocate herself to a small island located in the middle of the ocean undetected.

Upon arriving on Sunny Island she found that the inhabitants were more than willing to keep her location a secret to anyone else and aside from the occasional touring rabid fan or two she found it was easy to remain hidden from the outside world. It was during her time there that she found herself falling in love. While a majority of the songs she had written were based around that emotion she had never truly experienced it herself. Granted she was no stranger to the concept of dating somebody and the like yet her relationship with the islands resident farmer-in-training Mark felt different, like genuine true love. With everything going so well on the island it was hard for her to believe how fast things went south.

It seemed her first mistake was thinking that nothing could go wrong.

It was after around two years of living on the island that Lanna started to feel that her break was over. Surely her fans were growing impatient for her to return and with how long she had been gone it would be no surprise to her if her manager was ready to drop her as a client. Yet with everything going so well on the island she found it hard to want to leave. Sure enough when she found she couldn't possibly make the decision on her own she decided to talk it over with Mark, feeling the object of her affection would be the one who would tell her the right thing to do. Unfortunately he didn't react the way she had hoped he would.

At the mere mention of her leaving him and the island behind after so long he flew into a state of anger. He told her that she would be throwing everything they worked so hard for away and that there was no guarantee that things between them would be able to go back to normal if she ever came back. While his anger towards her was a surprise she couldn't help but feel that he had every right to be mad at her. After all, she was considering leaving the person she had practically dedicated over a year and a half of her life to for an undetermined amount of time. She wanted to continue their relationship but she knew that if he came with her she would have no personal time with him. Well, that and she wasn't sure how he would be able to handle the paparazzi hovering over them. It was after days of thinking alone that she finally determined that it wouldn't be right for her to throw away her career and abandon her fans for just one person. She had promised them she would return.

While she felt she made the right choice and still stood by it, she couldn't feel like she was just adding another mistake to a growing pile.

With her mind set the first thing she did was seek out Mark to tell him of her choice in private. She had prepared herself for the worst and hoped that he would be able to understand her reasoning yet what he did was unexpected. Once she finished explaining herself he just stared at her in disbelief for a moment before walking away without even speaking a word. In the days that followed Mark seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth but she knew that he was purposely avoiding her. With each passing day she could feel a pain in her heart growing and she found herself wanting to do anything to numb it.

It was rather stormy night that she remembered that she had a small but stocked wine cabinet in the back corner of her kitchen just in case the need arose. Without knowing what she was doing she found herself practically raiding it, hoping the next sip she took would be the one that wiped the pain away. Despite her senses slowly becoming disoriented each second she still found herself able to hear the knocking on her door in the middle night. She stumbled over to the door to find Mark there, ready to have an actual talk about her choice. At that point, however, she was no longer able to have a serious conversation about anything. The rest of that night was a blur to her. The most she could recall was that disappointed look he had on his face as he slowly left the house as she laid on the floor crying, a bottle of wine still in her hands. Unable to get her thoughts straight as she laid there she began to see his disapproving expression on the face of all the islands residence. Knowing she wouldn't be able to face them after that she decided to quietly relocate to Forget-Me-Not valley until it was time for her to return to the city.

Suddenly she heard Griffins voice call out to her.

"Hey, Lanna. You alright?"

"Huh, what?" She muttered as she shook her head to bring herself back to the present.

"You zoned out there for quite a while." He responded.

She sat up in her chair and looked around the bar to see that it was no longer empty and had started to fill up with residents of the valley. Turning back to the counter she looked at the counter in front of her and took note of the two empty glasses beside the half full one in her hand.

"Yeah I'm fine." She finally answered as she started to rummage around her purse. She placed a modest pile of gold on the table. "Here, keep the change."

As Griffin began to scoop the money up to put in the register Lanna got up for her seat and headed out the door. While she wasn't paying much attention to her surrounds she could tell by the darkened sky and now on street lights that she had been inside reminiscing for quite some time. Stepping into the inn she didn't even bother to check if Ruby was still behind the desk and simply headed straight to her room, after all she still had work to do.

Once inside she tossed her purse over into the chair near the door and walked over to her bed, sitting on the edge of it once more. Despite hardly doing anything she was already exhausted and ready for bed yet there were still some things for her to take care of. Looking over at the nightstand she picked up her phone and looked it over again.

"Still nothing…" She muttered once more, sounding a bit sadder this time.

Resting it on her lap, she looked up for a minute before glancing back down at it. Taking a deep breath she went through her contacts and scrolled down the page before stopping.

Mark the one she paused at read.

Taking a deep breath, she selected it and held the phone up to her ear as it began to dial. Her heart began to speed up with each ring.

Suddenly the ringing stopped.

"M-Mark! It's me… Lanna…" She began before stopping.

"_Hey, leave me a message and I'll get back to you." _The voice on the other end of the phone said.

Her arm fell to her side as she turned the phone off, her head began to lower in disappointment.

"I… I just wanted to see how you've been… And if you're doing okay like me…" She stuttered.

She dropped her phone on the floor as she buried her face in her hands.

"I… I just want to talk that's all." She cried as her eyes began to fill with tears.

She wiped the tears from her eyes before looking down at the floor. This whole routine, the nightmares, sleeping through the whole day, wallowing in self-pity, it wasn't what she wanted. She wanted things to go back to how they used to be, back when she was a star. She wanted to be able to write music that came from her heart, she wanted to be able to go through the day without frowning, but most importantly she just wanted somebody to be there for her now.

She curled up into a ball and lied down in the middle of the bed as she tried to calm herself. She desperately wished that these past few weeks were all just a nightmare and she when she woke up she'd be back in her house on the island. She knew that wasn't the case though. As she continued to look further and further back she began to wonder if her first mistake wasn't returning to the stage but rather leaving it. After all, if she had continued her career without any breaks she wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Even then though she would have still made the mistake of missing out on everything she experienced on the island.

Mistakes, that's all she could seem to think about now.

She continued to lie on the bed, motionless, as that word continued to circle her thoughts.

"_Why can't I just write songs like I used to… why can't I just write what I feel…?"_

Her eyes opened wide after a moment as she suddenly came to a revelation. It wasn't that she could no longer write what she was feeling, it was that she couldn't write about how she wanted to feel.

Slowly, she began to uncurl herself and sit back up on the edge of the bed before bending over to pick up her phone, her movements almost making it seem as if she was in a trance. Flipping through her contacts again she stopped when she reached the number of her manager and dialed it.

It began to ring once more.

"Hello…?" She quietly asked once it stopped ringing.

"Lanna? Is that you?" Her manger wearily asked on the other end. "Do you have any idea what hour it is here?"

"Sorry, I just had to ask something." She replied before pausing.

"Well?"

She took a deep breath. "I… I was just wondering… how would you feel if I… went in another direction with my music?"

"Another direction?" He asked.

"Yeah… Like, if I didn't focus on romance that much and…" She began to clarify before he cut her off.

"Look, it late. Just write out what you have in mind and we'll look over it when you get here in a few weeks okay?"

She nodded her head even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Okay, I will."

Without another word her manager hung up.

With her newfound inspiration for her work she rose up from her seat and walked over to the desk. Retrieving a blank piece of paper from one of the desk's many piles as she sat down and began to quickly jot down new ideas for songs with her new found inspiration. With each lines she finished she could feel another ounce of weight lifting off her shoulders, the stress and doubt clouding her mind fading. If the songs she could now make could get the approval of her manager then she would be set and maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have to drink anymore.

**A/N: Inspired by the songs "Drunk Again" by Reel Big Fish and "Telephone Lines" by Electric Light Orchestra. **

**My friend invited me over to her house a few nights ago and we decided to listen to some music for awhile. She wanted to hear some of the songs I like so I played some of the songs I had on my phone, these two came up after another and the idea for this fic popped into my head. It's my first fic in a while so it's probably not the greatest but please R&R anyway.**

** Don't hold me to it but I might start working on "To Build an Island" again if I have time but I also have some ideas for more songficish oneshots based off of some other ELO songs. But I digresss.****  
**

**I hope you enjoyed the story.**


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